In a wide-ranging interview, veteran revolutionary İbrahim Çiçek reflects on Turkey’s political crises, the resurgence of socialism, youth uprisings, and Abdullah Öcalan’s peace appeal—offering rare insight into a nation on the edge of transformation and the global return of radical politics.
Reflecting on decades of political struggle, Çiçek situates today’s socialist resurgence within a historical context, tracing its revival back to the 2008 financial crisis and the wave of uprisings that have since erupted globally. He discusses the structural crisis within the international socialist movement, the shifting strategies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and the broader implications of the Turkish far-right MHP’s surprising overtures toward peace. Drawing on his personal experiences of persecution, exile, and a lifetime committed to revolutionary journalism, Çiçek offers candid insights into Turkey’s contemporary crises, the resilience of popular movements, and the possibility of political transformation. This conversation not only examines whether the modern Turkish Republic is nearing its end but also explores what might come next, providing readers with a sharp, insider’s analysis of a nation at a critical crossroads.
- Growing up in the 80s, Greece was bordering with communist regimes (Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania) and I saw the negative impact of communism in people’s lives. For me, communism was something that belonged to another era. However, I recently attended an ICOR (International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organisations) webinar and saw a lot of young people talking about communism, fighting imperialism and colonialism. This isn’t just happening in the MENA region but also in the US and Europe. So my question is: what makes communism currently relevant and appealing especially to the younger generations?
Apart from your personal experience, I must strongly emphasize that the 1990s marked an important threshold in world history. The implosion and collapse of the modern revisionist USSR, the attempt by the forces of restoration to liquidate all the vestiges of socialism and to merge with the world capitalist system to complete the restoration that has been going on for several decades; this is an important turning point in the history of the socialist struggle. It can be said that from the foundation of Marxism and Scientific Socialism in the 1840s to the present day, an unprecedented reactionary, liquidationist wave has developed over the course of almost two centuries of history, and many revolutionary party organisations have taken the path of liquidationism and reformism, have been absorbed into the capitalist order or have been dissolved within the system.
Humanity has passed through a time when the hired pens of imperialism joyfully proclaimed the “end of history”, the final victory of liberal democracy. It was a time when socialism lost prestige and credibility. It was a time when the ties between the socialist movements and the working class and the oppressed were weakening. Socialist movements were unable to respond to the revolutionary leadership needs of this period in which they existed. Yes, the world communist movement was in a structural crisis.
In our country [Turkey], for example, Marxist Leninist communists systematically continued their efforts to respond to the structural crisis and restructure the communist movement. The socialist movement has still not been able to overcome the structural crisis. This is a transitional period in which the youth, the working class and millions of oppressed people are turning away from socialist ideas. So much so, that tens of thousands were shouting “another world is possible” in social forms, but they could not say that this “another world” was socialism (“what it is”!). The pioneers who would lead the masses to rise up and march in front of the palaces in an attempt to take power had not yet appeared on the stage of history.
The 2008 financial crisis not only saw the maturation of imperialist globalisation but also forced its gravediggers into action. Let us recall the mass uprisings that erupted in late 2010 and swept across the MENA with waves reaching Syria and Turkey in the summer of 2013. And then in 2019, on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic, we witnessed a new wave of mass uprisings in dozens of countries. The fact that communism has become “current and attractive” for the younger generations is also linked to all these developments. So the situation is changing.
The reality you are witnessing is important. You are right that not only “in the MENA region, but also in the US and Europe”, “communism” is regaining respect and prestige, first and foremost among the youth. Last year, the Lenin seminars organised in Germany and Turkey by the Marxist Theory magazine, of which I am one of the editors, were well-attended by the youth. The Lenin seminar organised by ICOR, in which I also gave a presentation, witnessed a high level of youth participation, with young people from many different countries attending.
Let us also remember the international solidarity of the youth in Germany, England, France and other countries, despite all the Zionist oppression and terror, especially in the USA. In Germany, France and other European countries, there is growing evidence that a mass and powerful socialist youth movement is emerging, and interest in socialism is growing. This is the case from Serbia to Kenya.
Last March, for the first time in Turkey’s half-century history, tens of thousands of university students mobilised with the slogans “revolution, rebellion, freedom” and “government resign”, tearing down police barricades and paving the way for a massive uprising numbering in the hundreds of thousands and millions. The youth senses, sees and questions that the age of imperialist globalisation does not promise them a future.
Only Marxism can develop the most consistent, the most comprehensive, the most thoroughly revolutionary critique of capitalism, monopoly capitalism, that is, imperialism and its “imperialist globalisation phase”. It is never a purely academic critique, but a process of reconstruction in which vanguard organisations will gradually meet with the search for masses. Marxist analysis and criticism also shows that the conditions for communism have been created, that the material social basis for social revolution has fully matured. Communism is becoming relevant and attractive again for the new younger generations.
- Is Öcalan’s recent statement consistent with the PKK’s ideological and strategic framework? And how do you view MHP’s surprise shift and attempt to launch a peace process?
Before moving on to the latest statement of the Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, I would like to remind you that the “ideological and strategic framework of the PKK” has changed many times and the PKK has been restructured many times. The first one took place in the early 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. Then there was a paradigm shift after Mr Öcalan was handed over to the Turkish bourgeois state by an international conspiracy. In the 2013 “solution process”, the PKK shifted its demands to the axis of democratic autonomy. The PKK leader’s latest statement from Imrali does not directly formulate national democratic demands.
However, the “Call for Peace and Democratic Society” and the statement “respect for identities, their free expression and democratic organisation, the socio-economic and political structuring of all segments based on themselves are only possible with the existence of a democratic society and political space” declare that the struggle for national democratic demands will continue. We have witnessed the development of eclectic theories and ideologies, especially in national movements, in conditions where the hegemony of socialism and Marxism in “opposition” movements in world politics has been shaken and its influence has diminished.
Eclectic ideologies and theories influenced by contemporary anarchism (which do not constitute a coherent system of thought) play an important role in the reformist evolution of national movements. Ideologies are “developed” in accordance with political strategy and tactics, real policies are theorised.
It is true that the MHP’s position is a surprise if you look at its own historical, ideological and political character and program. If it were possible, Devlet Bahçeli and the MHP would destroy the PKK down to the last member. But the laws of political struggle work. All major parties of the Turkish collaborationist monopolist bourgeoisie took part in the war-governments and became the executors of the annihilating war against the Kurdish freedom guerrillas claiming to crush the Kurdistan national liberation struggle.
After the 2013-2015 solution process, they started a new phase of the war with the Suruç massacre on 20 July 2015. The MHP has been a partner of the AKP for the last ten years. In this period, the war, also called the “collapse plan”, was waged with the aim of destroying the guerrillas in the Medya Defense Areas/Zones, liquidating the Rojava Revolution in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, disbanding national democratic political organisations in Turkey, liquidating all the gains of the national democratic movement, destroying all its positions, and similarly liquidating the revolutionary movement in Turkey.
The Turkish bourgeois state had some successes but failed to achieve its main objectives. The will of the guerrillas could not be broken and a military victory could not be achieved. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria continued to exist and became increasingly politically important. They have also failed to dismantle the HDP-DEM’s political organisations, despite the arrest of hundreds and thousands of party executives and members, co-mayors, people’s deputies, party co-chairs, and the imposition of heavy prison sentences through the unremitting, fascist state-terror against the party. The first reason for the MHP’s initiative is this reality, the inability to solve the problem with war, the inability to break the great Kurdish popular resistance.
On the other hand, the denialist colonialist Turkish bourgeois state and its parties are very sensitive to international developments. After the “Iron Dome” myth was shattered on 7 October, Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people changed the conditions and power relations in the region. These developments also led to the loss of the Damascus-Bass regime in Syria.
All the countries of the region felt the need to review and revise their strategies and tactics due to the new situation. Realising that these conditions and power relations threatened the “survival” of the Turkish bourgeois state, Devlet Bahçeli and the MHP took action by emphasising the priority of “strengthening the internal front”. Undoubtedly, the fascist colonialist character of Devlet Bahçeli and the MHP has not changed. But the unbreakable will for freedom, resistance and the changing circumstances forced them to go to İmralı to the Kurdish People’s Leader, Abdullah Öcalan.
Now I think it is appropriate to emphasise the following. There is the reality of a war that has been going on for about half a century. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), NATO’s second largest army, could not defeat the Kurdistan freedom guerrillas. The guerrillas could not break the will of the TSK and the Turkish bourgeois state to fight. A kind of equilibrium situation has emerged, which we call “Pata”. In short, the parties to the war could not achieve their goals, but their will to fight was not broken. In the current situation, it is necessary to see that both sides are in need and search for a compromise. Devlet Bahçeli’s “unexpected stance”, Abdullah Öcalan’s response with his “Call for Peace and Democratic Society” and the developments that followed, confirm the parties’ search for reconciliation.
I would like to draw attention to the PKK’s determination to seek reconciliation, but also to the fact that the state is not so determined, that it has contradictions and problems within itself, and that there are various tricks and games (“There are many games in the Ottoman Empire!”).
- As someone who has had first-hand experience of inhuman and degrading treatment, i.e. persecution, prosecution and torture by the Turkish state, I would like to kindly ask you to comment on the current developments in Turkey.
It would not be wrong to say that two issues have been at the center of the agenda in Turkey in recent weeks. The first is the process that started with Abdullah Öcalan’s call on 27 February. We talked about that above.
The other is the popular revolt that erupted on 19 March. On 19 March, we see two basic elements, two different qualities intertwined. The first is that fascist chief Erdoğan took action to finish off his closest rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and the “main opposition”. The political Islamist fascist junta in the palace had İmamoğlu’s university diploma annulled. This was the last straw for the youth and the people, if not for the CHP. This is the first time in the last 30-40 years that university students have engaged in such a mass mobilisation.
The mass boycott returned to universities. With slogans such as “Government resign”, “Rebellion, revolution, freedom”, “No salvation, all together or none of us”, “We will win if we resist”, “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism”, the youth took the initiative not only for their own future but also for the future of the country. Hundreds of thousands and millions mobilised, did not recognise the dictator’s bans, and openly violated them. The popular uprising, which spread to different cities and lasted for days, broke the dictator’s game and prevented the appointment of trustees to the Istanbul municipality.
The dictator tried to suppress the people’s revolt by torturing and arresting hundreds of young people on the streets, by imposing bans and fascist terror. But he failed. Although the nine-day holiday has cooled the movement to some extent, the anger of the people against the injustice of the fascist regime, fascist oppression and terror has not subsided. The exponential crisis of poverty and the cost of living is making the lives of working people more and more unbearable. The people are in revolt against injustice and fascist tyranny does not frighten or intimidate the people. A new edition of popular revolt is not far away.
The most important problem of the people’s movement, which is still rebelling for freedom, justice and democracy and whose anger does not subside, is that it lacks a revolutionary leadership. Reformist, social chauvinist parties seem to be tailing the CHP. Revolutionary organisations, on the other hand, have a weak influence on the movement and have not been able to form a political centre.
The popular revolt has changed the CHP to some extent. The CHP, which used to say “don’t take to the streets” and “wait for the elections”, has withdrawn from the scene. There is a CHP that aims to win the elections by using the mass movement as a lever. The people who are rebelling are demanding freedom, democracy, justice, equality and a humane life. The CHP, on the other hand, is trying to use the people who are angry and outraged against the fascist, chieftaincy regime as leverage to get İmamoğlu elected as president and for the CHP to come to power.
- Is this the end of the modern Turkish Republic? If the answer is yes, then what is the beginning of?
The Turkish bourgeois state and the PKK are seeking a compromise. It is not completely impossible for them to reach a compromise, to make an agreement. But we also see that it is very difficult, especially since the state has different calculations and game plans. Let’s assume that in the continuation of the process a compromise is reached, an agreement is made. This would not mean the solution of the Kurdish national question, but that the struggle for the solution of the Kurdish national question would be accepted within the political system and “legal and political” conditions would be created. This means the change of the Kemalist republic as well as the Turkish fascist chieftaincy regime. But how and how much of a change remains to be seen! This would not be “the end of the modern Turkish Republic”; at most it would be an important step towards the democratisation of the Turkish Republic, which has never been “democratic” throughout its history.
- Do you ever see yourself returning to Turkey? What do you miss most?
We revolutionaries are always a little bit refugees and a bit exiles! Torture and imprisonment are never far from us. Life as a refugee is filled with longing. Exile is a longing for the social, cultural climate and geographical place you grew up in! But passion and dedication are the existential dough of revolutionaries. That is why our horizon opens to victory. My most ardent aspiration is the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship of the collaborationist monopolist Turkish bourgeoisie and the victory of the united revolution in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan.
The revolutionaries of Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, the working class and our peoples have paid a great price for decades. They have gained tremendous experience; I believe we deserve victory.
I would like to tell you a secret… but it is a well-known secret. In order to be a journalist in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan and to practice journalism, one must be a revolutionary. If a journalist is to tell the truth to the people, the costs are really high. Throughout the history of the Republic, there have been tortured detentions, imprisonment, murders in custody, kidnappings, disappearances, murders perpetrated by the state and heavy prison sentences of up to hundreds of years. But after the start of the guerrilla war in Northern Kurdistan in 1984, all this has become even more severe. Especially in Northern Kurdistan, the profession of journalism became very risky. Because the journalist either became an embedded, partisan journalist and betrayed his profession, or he became a spokesperson for the truth, or even more, he had to become a fighter for the truth. This was even true for newspaper distributors. This is why being a journalist in our country [Turkey] requires being a revolutionary. We are talking about a country where only those who are fighters for truth and reality can be journalists. We are talking about a country where journalists are always tried on charges of being members or leaders of secret organisations… The bourgeois press, the mainstream media, the courts of fascism say that they are not journalists, they are militants! It is true, we are honoured by this!
Penny Papadopoulou is a freelance journalist and interview producer specialising in Greece, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. She has a particular interest in foreign affairs and international diplomacy, and previously worked at the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4. She is currently contributing to Medya News with her reports, stories and interviews.
